Dance Rising NYC: Announces Next Hyper-Local Dance Outs

Dance Rising NYC announces the next Hyper-Local Dance Outs on Thursday, June 10, 2021 and Saturday, June 12, 2021 from 7pm-7:30pm ET. NY, NJ, CT, and PA professional dancers will take to the parks, streets, and rooftops to dance, focusing public attention on a resilient industry that is still struggling to survive due to closures and lack of support during COVID. All artists identifying as a professional dancer, choreographer or teacher are invited to take part. To sign up and for more information, visit https://bit.ly/SpringDanceOutSignUp

A grassroots collective formed last fall as an urgent response to the pandemic, Dance Rising NYC is a platform for embodied advocacy that affirms the importance of dance in all its forms. In October and December 2020, Dance Rising organized live, hyper-local dance outs: on several specific dates/times, 300+ NYC dancers across the boroughs simultaneously took to the parks, streets, and rooftops to dance, calling attention to an entire sector that has been shut down by the pandemic. Dance Rising collected video recordings from these dance-outs, representing individual artists and established companies like Limon, Ballet Hispánico, Flamenco Vivo, Trisha Brown, Heidi Latsky Dance, The Bang Group, New York Theatre Ballet, Kinesis Project dance theatre, jill sigman/thinkdance, Renegade Performance Group and Movement of the People. 

In March 2021, to honor the anniversary of the shutdown of the sector and in partnership with 30 cultural institutions, Dance Rising created their Five Boro Video Tour, bringing the videos of 300+ dancers to all five boros in lobby displays, kiosks, bus stops, newsstands, social media and a multi-screen, 24/7 10 day installation at 20 Astor Place. Despite gratitude for recent acknowledgement from State and City officials, the dance sector of NYC is still in crisis, from training the next generation to employing full-time professionals: dancers live in every neighborhood in the city, but the physical distancing requirements of the pandemic kept them isolated in their homes, while studios and stages remain largely closed. As NY re-opens, Dance Rising is declaring the dance sector an imperative part of the cultural engine of New York City.

Dance Rising founding member Melissa Riker, director of Kinesis Project dance theatre, says, "Even while it is a joy to watch NYC begin to re-emerge, our field has suffered a debilitating blow from the closure of our entire system for over a year. Dancers are resilient, and I believe we can bring ourselves back with support. To rally that support, Dance Rising offers dancers a way to re-establish their voice through performance and self advocacy. Dance Rising continues to be an emergency call to action; a way to create a multi-faceted dialogue that threads advocacy and visibility for dance into the streets of New York City." More information, including the dance map of all of the places dancers will be choosing to dance, are at http://www.dancerising.org

Dance Rising is supported by The Harkness Foundation for Dance, John and Jody Arnhold | The Arnhold Foundation, John C. Robinson, The Village Alliance, The Howard Gilman Foundation and other generous individuals. 

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

Dance Rising was formed in August 2020 as an urgent response to the pandemic by a collective of independent NYC dance artists and administrators. A platform for embodied advocacy that unites the dance industry and amplifies diverse voices and bodies, Dance Rising focuses public attention on the field and engages with stakeholders about partnership and possibility. It also provides audiences with opportunities to enjoy safe, site-specific performances and celebrates local artists--a potent reminder of the importance of arts and culture in NYC. Led by Melissa Riker, director of Kinesis Project dance theatre, Dance Rising is fiscally sponsored by The Field in partnership with Dance/NYC and advised by Lucy Sexton of New Yorkers for Culture & Arts. 

THE DANCE RISING COLLECTIVE

Alyssa Alpine/CUNY Dance Initiative, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Remi Harris, DJ McDonald, Joya Powell/Movement of the People Dance Company, Melissa Riker/Kinesis Project, Leslie Roybal/Flamenco Vivo, JoAnna Mendl Shaw/Equus Dance, Jill Sigman/thinkdance, Amber Sloan, André Zachary/Renegade Performance Group